This afternoon, outside the officehouse, a goldfinch burst out of nowhere, detached itself from all the other brightness bursts happening all around us, pushing us into the 90s for the first time this year. It burst out of the blue, as they say, only today our blue was turning white, on its way to haze. The goldfinch burst out and lit upon a branch outside the office, and I knew that the only thing for it--for it all, really--was to put the rest of the afternoon aside and visit my beloved classicist and his brilliant artist-wife, who is experimenting with methods of making monotypes. Monotypes? I said. Let's see them. And so we three trooped out to her studio and I re-learned her system of figuring out what combinations of inks will make what colors, even before she makes prints. And I relearned why these two people are so crucial in my life. Think forward: this is what everyone has counseled, and I hear them and have started, slowly but surely, to redistribute my things.

And let's just say that once I've taken up my visiting fellow post (which is only a temporary relocation), I'm looking forward to being able to borrow this item when I want, as they say, "to get away from it all." Perhaps in a year I will be able to write O punter of my heart--and have it be a positive thing for a change. I suspect that stranger things have happened.

Soon, deo volante, a baby will be born in Lexington. Please think some extra strength in that direction--if, you know, you do that kind of thing.